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help our state members get their jobs done. There are three Com- 

 missioners from each of our 15 states. The State Fisheries Director 

 in this state is Bob McDowell; a legislator is Senator Lou Bassano 

 and a public member is Tom Fote. 



On our management boards each state gets to have one of its 

 Commissioners represent that state on the board. Now the state 

 delegations have made the decision in almost every instance that 

 it would be the state directors. 



Mr. Pallone. So theoretically the decision level then it is strictly 

 state directors. 



Mr. DUNNIGAN. Well, it is state by state and each delegation has 

 come to the conclusion that they would be best served by having 

 the state director there. Now in response to a number of criticisms 

 even from within, from among our commissioners, we added extra 

 seats to our management boards a couple of years ago and Mr. Fote 

 was very instrumental in making this happen specifically to allow 

 an extra member to represent the governor's appointees and an 

 extra member to represent the legislators. 



So we have broadened the membership a little bit and, of course, 

 it is up to the state. They could have the governor's appointee be 

 the member on all these boards if that is what the state delegation 

 wanted to do. 



The council system, of course, is made up very differently. There 

 are the state directors who are there by law but there are also pub- 

 he members that are appointed by the Secretary who are many 

 more than state directors. 



This gets back to something that Gary Matlock was saying a lit- 

 tle while ago about what do you achieve if you move from one sys- 

 tem to another, is it really a dollar saving? I am not sure that that 

 is really what ought to drive this process. 



The states and the Federal Government are different and we 

 take different perspectives on issues. The question I think for blue- 

 fish right now is whether there is an appropriate Federal perspec- 

 tive that is significant enough that needs to have the full Federal 

 fisheries management process open to be used in it; or whether 

 they should just step back and leave it up to the states. 



You can't say that the two of them are just the same so that they 

 are duplicative. Mr. Pallone is pointing out one difference in our 

 processes that colors somehow the way we look at problems and 

 again we don't know yet what the right answer to the proposal by 

 the National Marine Fisheries Service is, and what we are going 

 to recommend. Whatever they conclude I think is going to have to 

 come from a rigorous analysis of what are the real Federal inter- 

 ests in this fishery and is it significant enough that we need to 

 have the full Magnuson Act process available to be used in partner- 

 ship with the states. 



Mr. Saxton. If the responsibility is passed on to the state, could 

 the allocation breakdown be changed by the states? 



Mr. DUNNIGAN. Whoever is writing the fishery management plan 

 could do that; and remember technically it is not really an alloca- 

 tion. What it was was that it was a trigger. 



Mr. Saxton. The 80/20 is a trigger? 



Mr. DUNNIGAN. Correct. In other words to maintain the tradi- 

 tional recreational character of this fishery it was noted at the time 



